Woman attacked by bird calls on others to pay attention to their safety

A woman warns people to stay alert after she was attacked by a bird of prey while walking in the woods.

Deborah Flint, from St Briavels in the Forest of Dean, was walking her dog through Mocking Hazel Wood when she came across a wooden box tied to a tree.

Believing it to be a geocache, Mrs Flint was peeking into the box when the bird attacked her “from high above and behind.”

She now has a large bump on her head and three small cuts, presumably from the bird’s beak and claws. Her neighbor was also attacked in the same spot over the weekend.

“It felt like someone had hit me on the head with a hammer or a rock, terrifyingly hard, and I didn’t hear anything,” she said.

“I turned around and expected to see someone standing behind me, but there was nothing.”

Ms Flint said she looked around “wildly” before spotting the feathered tail of a bird at the top of a tree.

She said she had never heard of birds attacking people before, but now knows that it is “nothing unusual.”

Mrs Flint was “really quite shocked” after the ordeal, but said she was “feeling much better now”.

She added: “I found out that a neighbor was attacked by the same bird in exactly the same spot the next morning and had to go to the hospital to get a tetanus shot.”

Ms Flint escaped by using her dog’s red leash – which she thought might look like a snake – and letting it “roll” around her head as she ran away.

She said she only approached the box – which she now believes may have been an owl nesting box – because she thought it might be a geocache.

Geocaching is an outdoor pastime in which participants leave containers at specific locations marked with coordinates for others to find using an app.

“If I had thought there was a bird in there, I wouldn’t have gone near it because I didn’t want to disturb the bird,” Ms Flint said.

Now she wants to raise awareness by warning others not to approach boxes that may serve as homes for wild birds.

She also calls on nature lovers to clearly mark the nests or place them well above head height.

Ms Flint said the wooden box containing the chicks was similar to those used to transport fresh produce and was not clearly identifiable as a birdhouse.

She added that there are other routes in the area that can be taken if one avoids the tree at the forest entrance at Offa’s Dyke.

Follow BBC Gloucestershire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send us your story ideas by email or WhatsApp to 0800 313 4630.

More about this story